False Hope

Throughout all of Herman Melville’s life, it seems that he has always had a special taste for adventure. From as early as age 1, Melville was exposed to the true thrilling story of the Whale ship Essex, which was attacked and sunken while Melville was a young boy. From that point, it seems like Melville lived a life on the sea; at age 20, Melville took his first voyage across the Atlantic Sea as a cabin boy on the St. Lawrence. Shortly after, Melville joined a whaling ship called Acushnet that would ultimately satisfy his desire for excitement and provide him with enough memories to write his first few novels (American). Melville’s strong desire to grow can be easily be seen throughout many of his novel’s, as most seem to be allegorical of his own life. For example, Moby Dick, one of Melville’s most well known novels, was originally intended by Melville to be a detailed account of his whaling experiences. However, after receiving precious feedback by Nathaniel Hawthorn, Melville decided to change the story into an allegorical novel instead. In Moby Dick, the narrator Ishmael and the Pequod crew, ‘blindly’ follow their captain, Captain Ahab, on his journey to seek revenge on the legendary great white whale, Moby Dick. This “blind mob mentality” parallels the American Gold Rush, something Melville experienced in its entirely.

During Melville’s lifetime, the American lifestyle was changing rapidly. Melville witnessed not only the drastic decline of the whaling industry but also the rise of industrialism and the popularization of Manifest Destiny. Due to the recent development of the transcontinental railroad and transportation technology, movement to the West became a prominent theme in American culture. This migration Westward was amplified greatly when gold was found at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California (BooksWriters). This news caused a great influx of people rushing into California to cash in on the “gold craze.” However this promise of quick riches proved too good to be true as although gold was discovered, only a few lead to actual great wealth. Many gold-seekers, known as “Forty-niners,” experienced substantial hardships on the trip to California, only to come up empty handed and broken hearted.

Herman Melville was around for the entire gold rush and personally witnessed the floods of “lemmings” all following one another across the country. Melville’s depiction of the whaling industry seen in the journey and demise of the Peqoud is symbolic of the ups and downs found in the many superfluous mining communities. Captain Ahab and the Pequod crew’s adventure on the sea to hunt Moby Dick is a metaphor for the average American’s desire to push west and follow the Gold Rush (the gold being the whale). In fact, the entire attitude and outlook of the Gold Rush can be reflected in Ahab’s stubborn vengeance. In Chapter 37, Ahab finds himself talking to himself, daring anyone to divert or “swerve” him from his purpose, not even himself (183). Although Ahab leads his crew, his path is evidently “fixed [and] laid with iron rails” as he admits he has no control over his own behavior; his desire for revenge is so strong that even he no longer can justify it. This speech is so strong that Ahab uses this energy to persuade his fellow crew members to take part in his ‘journey’ in promise of money and adventure, even going as far as offering a “gold” reward for the first shipmate who sights Moby Dick.

Ahab’s empty promises used to entice his crew members to accompany him reflects the “empty promises” believed by many of the “forty-niners” lured across country with desires of wealth and riches. These groups were so attracted to the false assurances of wealth that they were willing to leave everything they had behind, in order to start anew. This is very similar to the Pequod ship crew, who all seem to leave everything behind, in order to risk their lives recklessly following Captain Ahab. They both seem to demonstrate the same mob mentality that tempts them to take such ‘dangerous’ risks.

Moby Dick can also easily been seen as representative to the Gold Rush from the other side, the environmental side. In both cases, mankind is venturing into unknown or foreign territory. In the Gold Rush, Native Americans were attacked and forced off traditional lands while intense gold mining caused great environmental harm. In Moby Dick, man was exploring into the vast unknown sea in order to hunt an animal in its habitat. It seems that in both situations mankind ended up seeing demise after ‘disturbing the natural balance of the world.’ Perhaps Melville was also showing his negative reaction towards the gigantic influx of migration west for such a “pointless” reason. It is very possible that the eventual demise of the Pequod is Melville’s way of foretelling the weary future of the many who left everything in order to chase a silly dream.

Works Cited
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. Penguin Books. 2003.

Biography: Herman Melville. American Experience. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/biography/whaling-melville/

Herman Melville (1819-1891). Books and Writers.

http://kirjasto.sci.fi/melville.htm

Melville's Inversion

Herman Melville’s Moby Dick has been subjected to a countless number of interpretations. However, according to Fred Bernard, “currently Melvillean studies are awash with racial and ethnic interpretations” (Bernard, 1). Thus, it shouldn’t come as a sock that I found that a racial interpretation was most fitting of Melville’s Moby Dick: it is a novel that attempts to cast light unto “the dark”. Melville, with his signature metaphorical language, highlights the beauty of that which was unknown, misunderstood, underestimated, and undesired in the nineteenth century. Specifically, he criticized the ignorance that underlies racism and sympathized with African Americans, as they were the unknown and undesired in the nineteenth century; in Moby Dick the conventional norm—the white race as superior and more desirable to the black race—is challenged as Melville portrays the victimization of African Americans by Caucasians. Melville fails to find beauty or superiority in such cruelties of racism and slavery, both of which were norms in the nineteenth century.

Perhaps Melville’s Moby Dick is regarded as complex because it provides readers with, what I believe to be, an unusual perspective relative to the nineteenth century; he inverted widely accepted norms in an attempt to allow readers to experience what life is like on “the other side”. Melville reveals his sympathy for African Americans as he provides an image of Ishmael—someone who has not experienced what it it like to be African American—as he stumbles into a black church, in which the preacher discusses the trials and tribulations of being black: “It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A hundred black faces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond, a black Angel of Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a negro church; and the preacher’s text was about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping and wailing and teeth-gnashing there” (Melville, 11). Melville sympathizes with African Americans by showing his readers that being black is painful and is like being in hell on earth.

Melville uses land and sea as metaphors to challenge the conventional idea of black inferiority. He informs that the land, as it is greatly cherished, is overrated and should not be viewed as superior to the sea; the sea, which Melville frequently describes as dark or black, is too often underrated by landsmen due to their lack of understanding and exposure to its beauty. Melville writes: “But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of the seas have ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and repelling” (Melville, 298). Thus landsmen’s distaste for the sea represents the white race’s distaste for blacks. However, Melville challenges this distaste by informing readers that although subtle and underestimated the sea is dominant; landsmen, however, are oblivious to the sea’s dominance: “For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life” (Melville, 299). Fred Bernard provides another example of Melville’s challenge of the notion of black inferiority, “Ishmael…betrays his own color by references ‘to a story of a white man’, ‘white seaman’, and ‘the white sailor-savage’, which contrasts strongly, for example, with his neutral reference to an ‘oarsman’ whom he singles out in a painting by Ambrose Louis Garneray, an oarsman who is in fact a black” (Bernard, 386-387).

Melville places emphasis on colors, particularly black and white, throughout Moby Dick. There is an apparent inversion of each color’s associative meanings: white is described as evil and impure while black is described as mystical and admirable. This inversion can be seen as Ahab expresses great hatred towards the white whale: “That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him” (Melville, 178). Not surprisingly, Ahab, given his extreme hatred of the white whale, is frequently associated with positive descriptions of blackness, such as “the black terrific Ahab” (165). Moreover, Ahab is essentially the “rock” of the Pequod; he is respected, admired, and worshipped by all on board: “…Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe (Melville, 135). I believe that Melville uses Ahab to represent a force to end racism, as Ahab is adamant about hunting and killing the ferocious white whale. Stubbs, on the other hand, represents racism at its worst since he takes pleasure in belittling African Americans, specifically Fleece. However, I suppose Melville considered the force against racism to be superior to racism itself because Ahab is clearly superior to Stubbs. Although Stubbs was able to belittle Fleece, he stood no chance against Ahab; Ahab belittled Stubbs as he commanded, “Down, dog, and kennel” (Melville, 138).

Works Cited:
Bernard, Fred, “The Question of Race in Moby-Dick”. Massachusetts Review: A Quarterly of Literature, the Arts and Public Affairs. 2002. 384-404.

Melville's take on We, Civilized Folk

It is obvious that Melville has some ill feelings for the developed world – or at least the people of it. This is hard to put into general terms, as his opinions sometime shift depending on what exactly he’s talking about it, but using Typee and Moby Dick as references, I am finding his disdain for “enlightened” folk easily separated from his cryptic praise of “savages”.

In Moby Dick, Melville creates the image of Ahab as an unfeeling, unmoving mad-man. This is not singularly a plot-device meant to drive the Pequod to the edges of existence in search for a whale. I think Melville is commenting on the obsessive, cruel development of man as a product of perhaps greed, maybe even capitalism. Within the first few chapters of Typee, we are given numerous examples of militant take-overs and indulgence – most of which are at the expense of “savages”. In one instance of the French/Western powers asserting themselves on the Nukuheva Islands, we see “civilized” means of laying claim to the bay (inhabited by a more or less harmless tribe);

“Four heavy, doublebanked frigates and three corvettes to frighten a parcel of naked heathen into subjection! Sixty-eight pounders to demolish huts of cocoanut boughs, and Congreve rockets to set on fire a few canoe sheds!” More to the point (as later discussed), “Thus it is that they whom we denominate 'savages' are made to deserve the title. When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the 'big canoe' of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosom the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breast is soon converted into the bitterest hate.” (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1900/1900-h/1900-h.htm#2HCH0007).

Melville uses such instances of excessive domination in both texts. A scene from Moby-Dick that comes to mind first is one that we discussed in class – Ahab’s humiliation of Stubbs; and I quote, “’Below to thy nighty grave; where such as ye sleep between shroud, to use ye to the filling one at last. – Down, dog, and kennel!’” (Melville 126). Each of these incidents takes place on much different scales, but I believe the message to be the same. The madman Ahab has a lust for vengeance and the will to enforce his power over anything that may help him accomplish his goal. This is not but a stone’s throw away from the French’s invasion of the Pacific isle aforementioned. In the case of culture clashes, we see the piqued curiosity of new people with new ways and objects. It is sickening knowing that in history, tribes such as these fell victim to the unfair trades that were swindled past them, usually in exchange for valuable goods or even human beings.

Now, taking into consideration the context in which I have read Melville’s work, he undoubtedly is trying to say that we are in danger of losing humanity in exchange for plunder and self gratification. In the argument that explodes between Stubbs and Ahab, unnecessary insults affect the poor mate for the remainder of the story – extrapolating the idea; we see this harsh, undeserved punishment afflict the ship until its demise. Ahab exerts a mental advantage over the uneducated and submissive members of the crew and uses to his ends. Just as with the French’s exploitation of a weaker, less advanced tribe, Melville develops a theme that with great power is a great tendency to abuse it. More conventional, less excessive ways of accomplishing the same ends could very well have been used to realize a similar effect. In the non-fiction world, there is a lot of this behavior readily available for evidence. Tyrants and warlords have been replaced by dictators and collusion. Resources, once raced for in the age of imperialism have all been laid claim to, and are now held for ransom. America, quite frankly, has become the world’s capital for bigger, badder weapons – and the cojones to implement them. I find this theme very familiar (Marcuse).

In contrast to the controller, we see Mellville’s soft side for the controlled. He sings praises of Queequeg and the natives of Nukuheva, making their culture look like that of saints compared to the Christendom of invading forces (applicable to both cases). “There he sat, his very indifference speaking a nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and bland deceits. “ (Melville 63). What does this mean in comparison? Melville, like Marcuse (sorry to harp on him) believes that returning to a more simple state, a state of real emotions, passionate traditions, and a quest for survival and self-fulfillment is superior to the contemporary world of bottom-lines.

On a side note, and I think this exists only out of favoritism, Melville believes the whaling boat to be a masterpiece of technology. Literally speaking, this would simply represent his life and his opinion on the matter. Symbolically, I easily seeing this idea being a definition of the way in which capitalistic expansion has taken on a mechanical and perfected methodology, lead by the war-pigs – or Ahabs.

Works Cited
Melville, Herman. Typee: A Romance of the South Sea (eBook). The Project Gutenberg. < http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1900/1900-h/1900-h.htm#2HCH0007>

Melvill, Herman. Moby Dick or the Whale. New York, New York: Crown Publishers. 1987.

History or historical fiction?

I have already closely and critically read Typee, so I have excerpts from a preface written by John Bryant. In both of Melville's works; Moby Dick and Typee, there is a question raised as to whether or not the stories are fictional, and loosely based on Melville's real life or a true nonfictional account of it. Many critics of Typee say that it is historical fiction, pieces of truth and fiction, backed up by the fact that Melville uses fictionally named characters and that he really left no account of whether this work was a story brewed in his mind, or a true account of what happened to him when he traveled to the Marquesas Islands in 1841. The solution is left up to the reader; they need to take the textual evidence given throughout the book, and make the decision for themselves. It is the actual historical events in Melville’s life that lend credence to the story. The introduction is extremely important in the understanding of the book. Most would overlook it, but with this book it is imperative to read the prefaces to the story. The introduction by John Bryant gives the reader a background of not only Melville, but also the Typee people then and today. One of the most important accounts in the introduction is the section where he discusses the controversy surrounding Typee when it was first published. Up until July 1846, it was widely believed that his work was mostly fiction and a history peppered with romantic additions. Then his counterpart Richard Tobias Greene, also known as Toby, came forward to corroborate Melville’s story (xxvii). Another clue to support this claim is in the first sentence of the preface, he states “More than three years have elapsed since the occurrence of the events recorded in this volume.” (1) There would be no legitimate reason for this sentence to be included if this account was not historically accurate. In Moby Dick, The subject of the story's authenticity is not nearly as hotly debated, but there are still critics who believe this is a true account of the sinking of the whaleship Essex, which was attacked by a sperm whale. Another topic central to both books is the use of the term savage and white-man. Right off the bat in the introduction of Typee we are told that the term savage is used incorrectly in most contexts and offered an alternate connotation used by Melville. This is the idea of the noble savage. Instead of meaning wild or barbarous, this term, accredited to John Dryden, takes a positive meaning of a natural man; someone who lived by the laws of nature and did not bother with the burden of civilized society. The reason this term is particularly interesting is because it could be related to a peculiar theme of a kind of jealousy that the Europeans felt for the Polynesian way of life. One can find instances of Melville’s accounts of how truly happy the Polynesians are. “When I looked around the verdant recess in which I was buried, and gazed up to the summits of the lofty eminence that hemmed me in, I was well disposed to think I was in the “Happy Valley”, and that beyond those heights there was naught but a world of care and anxiety.” (124) In Moby Dick, the contrast between the white man and the uncivilized savage is a lot less apparent. The name of the boat they are in, the Pequod, even translates to an extinct Indian tribe. Much like the tribute to the Marquesan islanders in Typee, Melville gives a small nod to the "savages" of the Northeast in Moby Dick. This book also discusses class and the debate over the effectiveness of colonization. There are several themes that tie these two bookd together, but I think the origins of the stories are the most interesting to examine.

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. Penguin Books. 2003.

Melville, Herman. Typee. Penguin Books. 1996.

Melville's Genre Mix

To me, the exact genre of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick is a little unclear. Yes, it is a work of fiction, with made up characters and an untrue plot. However, the details on whaling and life as a whaler are so precise that perhaps this book could even be considered a non-fictional reference tool. Even though Captain Ahab is based off of God and is compared to the pyramids and ancient Egypt, the reader knows Ahab is a fiction character. One could not go to Melville’s time and find THE Captain Ahab. He is a peculiar character, full of strength, yet lacking all sorts of human emotion and compassion. Ishmael describes his first time seeing Ahab on deck: “He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould” (Melville 134). Melville makes up many details about Ahab, as well as the rest of the characters on board the Pequod.

Contrastingly, one prime example of the factual aspect of Moby Dick can be seen in Chapter 32: Cetology. Melville spends pages upon pages exploring the scientific aspects of whales. He divides the whales “into three primary Books (subdivisible into Chapters), and these shall comprehend them all, both small and large. I. The Folio Whale; II. The Octavo Whale; III. The Duo-Decimo Whale” (Melville 148-149).

Instead of focusing on one specific passage of Moby Dick, I thought of the book as a whole and wanted to know about the reason for both fiction and non-fiction elements in Moby Dick. I read chapter eleven titled “The Man Who Lived Among the Cannibals” in Laurie Robertson-Lorant’s book titled Melville: A Biography. In this chapter, Laurie explained who the audiences who were reading the books published during Melville’s time were. Ninety percent of white adults could read, with a variety of subject matter suiting their tastes. Men and women differed greatly on the types of books they read. Robertson-Lorant says, “most working-class women, if they had time to read at all, looked for novels that portrayed families happier than their own, while most working-class men preferred action-packed adventures set in exotic locales, or crime novels with urban settings” (Robertson-Lorant 199). One of Melville’s earlier works Mardi was unconventional and unappealing to readers, and the narrator Taji was said to even be annoying. Mardi was highly unsuccessful and was rejected by the people. Many Americans were in search of a good book. However, neither the men nor women wanted to read one laced with melodramatic language, or “lapses of narrative control, combined with the rapid shifts from serious to comic tone” (Robertson-Lorant 196). Overall the general public saw Melville as nothing more than a sailor who wrote books about traveling. He wasn’t seen as the satirist and great poetic author as he wished to be. The chapter title comes from what publishers and readers continued to view Melville as: a man who lived among the cannibals (196).

“Vogaging ‘chartless’ through the archipelagoes of Mardi had convinced Melville that fiction captured the truth of human experience better than ‘unvarnished facts’ did” (Robertson-Lorant 200). However, Melville still needed to make a living by his pen, so he promised Harper & Brothers publisher Richard Bentley that he would start to write “a plain, straightforward, amusing narrative of personal experience-the son of a gentleman on his first voyage to sea as a sailor-no metaphysics, no conic-sections, nothing but cakes & ale” (198). Before publishing Moby Dick in in 1851, Melville had two more works published after Mardi: Redburn and White-Jacket. These books were still about the sea and shipping, but the readers sympathized with the narrator and played with ideas of symbolism while reading. The situations in these books could be related to by the young men reading them, such as poverty and disease, alcoholism, and sexual tension (208). The only problem was that Melville didn’t love what he was putting out for the public. If he wanted to be a widely-read author and survive, he would have to put out books to appeal to his readers. Or, he could put out what his heart desired (such as in Mardi) and be a poor, un-loved author. Talking about Redburn and White-Jacket, Meleville says “being books, written in this way, my only desire for their ‘success’ (as it is called) springs from my pocket, & not from my hard. So far as I am individually concerned, & independent of my pocket, it is my earnest desire to write those sorts of books which are said to ‘fail.’ –Pardon this egotism” (215).

While the end of the chapter does not cover Melville’s thoughts on writing Moby Dick, this was his next published book, and it seems pretty clear to me what he did. Instead of writing for his heart and having no readers, or writing for his brain and having tons of readers, Melville created a hybrid of these two, and published a book loved by readers everywhere: Moby Dick. It has the stories of adventure the men were looking for, and for the women, the members of the Pequod formed their own type of family. For Melville, he got to explain with great intensity the descriptions of whales (hence the chapter “Cetology,”) and what it was like to be a whaler, while also having fun creating characters and a fictional story (such as Ahab). Reading Laurie Robertoson-Lorant’s book Melville: A Biography helped me understand why exactly Melville’s famous book Moby Dick was laced with a combination of both fiction and non-fiction, unlike a standard book with one or the other.



Works Cited


Melville, Herman. Mob- Dick, or, The Whale. New York: Penguin Books, 1992.

Robertson-Lorant, Laurie. Melville: A Biography. New York: Clarkson Potter/Publishers, 1996.

Finding Meaning in John Marr and Other Poems

Work Used: Melville's John Marr and Other Poems (Tom Deadlight, specifically, is between a quarter and a third of the way down the page)

Herman Melville's poem “Tom Deadlight” is about “a grizzled petty-officer, one of the two captains of the forecastle” in his dying moments. The poem is dedicated to the officer's last thoughts and words, remembering his life and remarking on the state in which he is dying. This poem, like Moby Dick, shows Melville's fascination with finding meaning and completeness in life before one's death.

Tom spends the poem thinking about his impending death. He spends much of the poem in a state halfway between lamenting that he is dying and ensuring that he goes in the perfect way. He describes exactly how he wants to be buried and treated at his funeral, saying “And don't sew me up without baccy in mouth, boys, And don't blubber like lubbers when I turn up my keel.” He dwells in the beginning on saying farewell, and moves into a summary of his life a la T.S. Eliot's Prufrock. This summary shows readers what moments were important to him and he conveys a sense that he's done a sort of mental checklist of deeds that to him signal that his life is complete. He seems to take solace in the completeness. He spends the last two stanzas describing exactly how he wants to be “sent off,” describing the right farewell for himself; this shows readers that his feeling of completeness becomes almost a discovery of the meaning of life. To Tom, completeness of experience is an ultimate goal and therein a meaning of life. He feels he can die, and deserves to be respected in his death, because he's “done it all.”

Melville is still (clearly) heavily influenced by death and its implications. Specifically, Melville is fixated on man's accomplishments before his death. Melville, a man who spent most of his life struggling to understand and come to terms with religion, is fascinated with the things man feels the need to accomplish before death. This is most evident in the character of Ahab in Moby Dick; his one desire is to hunt down and kill Moby Dick. While much else goes on in the course of the novel, the one bare-bones statement that can be made of the novel is that it is a story of the struggle of one man and his crew to complete what they believe to be their crowning accomplishment. Their sense of meaning in life hinges on not Tom's simple sense of completeness, but the one specific deed of killing Moby Dick.

In many other ways, Moby Dick is a novel about finding meaning in life. The sort of last-resort feeling that a whaling ship exudes for most is a solid example of this. Most of the men in a whaling crew have no choice but to be on that ship. While their lives seem miserable, and they are tortured by many higher-ups on the ship as well as the appalling conditions of the ship, they are there because they had no better options. Their lives showed no sign of a meaning in any form, and so they joined the crew on a whaling ship in an attempt to find that meaning last-minute. Moby Dick presented himself as a fleeting embodiment of that meaning.

Many other of Melville's characters in Moby Dick are searching for other sorts of meaning. The relationship (whether sexual or non-sexual) between Ishmael and Queequeg is the most blatant search. Neither man has any close personal relationships, and when they find each other and realize that they can find the fulfillment of this kind of a relationship after all they have found a sort of meaning. In the chapter called The Sermon, Father Mapple (wrongly) interprets the biblical story of Jonah and the Whale to suit his own beliefs, giving himself a sense of pride and causing himself to feel as though he has also found meaning.

Christian Or Else

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville has many different themes and ideas scattered throughout the book. In Ray B. Browne’s book Melville’s Drive to Humanism the concept of humanism in respects to Moby-Dick are examined by Browne. He does this by critiquing using several examples and situations where Melville critiqued many aspects of society during his time, including religion. Melville does not come right out and say it put in different parts of the book he compares religions of two major groups; the white Christians and all others. The all others category can really be split into two subgroups, the Negros and the Pagans. Both are used by Melville to say similar things about religion. The first encounter that the main character Ishmael has with one of these groups is at the black church.

“It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Trophet. A hundred black faces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond, a black Angel of Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a Negro church; and the preacher’s text was about the blackness of darkness, and weeping and wailing and teeth-gnashing there,” (Melville 11).

This scene is only one paragraph of the story and can be overlooked. Browne brings up the comparison of this Negro church to the chapter “The Chapel”. He says that this is where Melville tries to get his thoughts of religion out to the reader. In the black church there were many attendees and in white’s few people attended. Also, in the white man’s church Melville said that everyone sat away from others to isolate their grief, whereas the blacks sat together becoming a unite (Browne 48). As Browne pointed out, although Melville does not clearly compare the two churches he definitely is comparing the two churches. I believe that how Melville represents the churches is how he symbolizes the whaling ship working. The blacks are mainly the crew of the ship, working hard and needing to be a unit to survive and get the job done; where the white men watch over in isolation leading the vessel. Browne enhances this idea with his critique of Father Maple and his actions.

“Maple comes in alone, not having used any man-made means of traveling in the storm. To have used such a conveyance would have been an admission by Maple that he had to depend upon his fellowman. As soon as he enters, he isolates himself from the congregation by climbing up to his crows-nest of a pulpit…The pulpit leads the world…The pulpit is the forward part of the ship as it plows through the sea and life. It travels blindly and unchanging (Browne 49).

In this analysis of Melville’s work Browne sees that the church and ship are being compared. Another thing that can be compared and are not opposites but almost two of the same is Father Maple and Captain Ahab. Like in the quote above when Browne said the pulpit is like the front of the ship, I believe a similar comparison can be made of Ahab and Maple. Browne said the front of the ship, “travels blindly and unchanging”. This sounds to me like a critique of the Christian religion. Maple leads a group of white men in a sermon praising the works of God and shaping the way the men believe blindly all because he is up in his pulpit. The same can be said about Captain Ahab, where instead of a church he has a ship and he leads these men with them trusting and following his commands. They both are in some way or another are acting to be a God-like figure. After scaring men they get them to follow their ways and do as they say. This could be said to be what Melville dislikes about religion.

Another tacit that Melville uses in the critique of American religion is the character Queequeg. He actually was in attendance for the sermon preformed by Father Maple and Melville is quick to point out that he left early. Almost to say that the Pagan, Queequeg, was fet-up with the preaching and had better things to do. “Queequeg is exactly the opposite of Maple. Puzzled by Maple’s hard-hearted Christianity, Queequeg is studying his god to see if he is of such nature. Instead of taking another man’s word about the nature of God, Queequeg is digging into the truth himself (Browne 62). In the chapter “Bosom Friend” Ishmael wrestles with himself asking questions about if he a Presbyterian could join this Pagan in a religious event with his god, Yojo. Ishmael does join Queequeg in the worship of Yojo in their room before bed.

He said, “So I kindled the shavings; helped prop up the innocent little idol (Yojo); offered him burnt biscuit; salaamed before him twice or thrice; kissed his nose; and that done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our consciences and all the world.”(Melville 58).

In a way Melville in my eyes is saying that although the Paganistic religion can seem simple in its premise, it can also provide a good sense of one’s self. And after reading and learning about Melville that is one of the popular feelings on the interpretations of his religious outlooks. Browne would call in humanism and so would most people that are more intelligent then myself, but I would call it common sense. To me religion is not following a minister to shape God into what he thinks or wants it to be. It is believing in something that will benefit you as a person and if that means kissing a wooden idol before bedtime then more power to you and I think Melville would agree.



Browne, Ray B. Melville’s Drive to Humanism. Purdue Research Foundation. 1971.

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. Penguin Books. 2003.

Prompt (Singular) for Melville, Week 2

Preamble:  There's only one prompt this time, but it's broad, and it comes with a note.  Everybody gets an extension until Sunday at noon, which is a strict deadline (noon means noon, in this case, not 1 p.m.).  I want everyone to work a little on their research skills this week.  Not every paper (note that I say every paper, not every essay) will have an extended argument; they should all have an argument, but it may not be polished or complete.  Some will be primarily informative.

Prompt:  Perhaps using my discussion of Typee or the Book of Jonah as a model, or perhaps ranging a little farther afield, everyone should do some additional Melville-related reading.  If you're reading an academic book, read a chapter or two.  A full length academic essay (say, 15-20 pages) is also fine.  If you're reading a biography, 20-40 pages.  Or, you might read an extended selection from one of Melville's other works (not including "Benito Cereno" or "Bartleby the Scrivener") - say, roughly 40 pages.

What you're doing is summarizing some relevant argument or moment from your chosen text, and then exploring how that text can help us understand Moby-Dick.  If you're using an academic article (or excerpt from the book), use (or challenge) its argument.  If you're using a biography, show us some way in which knowing something about Melville's life illuminates his work.  If you're reading one of his other works of fiction or poetry, put it to work (as I did with the excerpt from Typee).

In any case, you must apply some particular, cited passage from your chosen work to help understand a particular, cited passage from Moby-Dick, with no exceptions.


What Sources are Valid?


Any academic essay of at least fifteen pages in length, which you will find in our library using the MLA index.  Hopefully this link will work, although you'll need to log in using your Pitt Id:  MLA.

Any academic work (biography or criticism) on Herman Melville.  An easy start is to pittcat.pitt.edu, then click on "search," change from a "title" search to a "subject heading" search, and enter Melville, Herman.   If you want a biography, don't use one older than 20 years.  Most people like Herschel Parker's.  Personally, I like like the one by Laurie Robertson-Lorant.  There are other good ones, too.

Any of Melville's other fiction or poetry.  I suggest Typee, Omoo, or White-Jacket as the easiest to apply - but anything is fair game.  If you're really lazy, you can use the Gutenberg etexts.  If you do, link to the text whenever you cite it, and I'll search for the exact passage if I want (read about a quarter or a fifth of the whole for the first two, or half that for White-Jacket, since you won't have a page count).  Cut and paste to be sure your spelling is correct.  If you can't figure out how to do links - too bad.  Go to the library instead.

Open Thread for Melville, Day 2. Also, pay attention!

Note - everyone needs to bring their bible to class tomorrow (remember, you're supposed to have a copy at least available to you for this class).  If a few of you don't have them, we can manage, but if you don't have a copy and can't get one before class, go here, locate the book of Jonah, and print up a copy (don't print the whole thing!).  Just search for the word "Jonah" - the book begins with the second occurance of the word.  It's very short.

Question

Does anyone know if we're still supposed to respond to the essay right after us? I'm not sure if it makes a difference that they're revisions..

Revision of Blog Entry 2: freedom?

Freedom is For the Wise



Freedom has many definitions. It seems that for every person, the word has a different and unique form with endless possibilities. Marcuse and Butler both had feeling, or better yet thoughts, about what freedom is to them. Although the two authors have different styles of getting their message across to the reader, I feel that both have similar overall meanings of the word, idea, or thought of freedom.

First, Marcuse talks about freedom on multiple pages and does not limit freedom to a singular object, but more as a plural word with different aspects and angles. In his book One-Dimensional Man he comes right out of the gate and dives into the concept of freedom because it is such a key point in most of his critiques of our society and needed to be explained early. The closest Marcuse comes to actually saying his own definition comes more as what he thinks is wrong with it in our society. “Freedom of thought, speech, and conscience were – just as free enterprise, which they served to promote and protect – essentially critical ideas, designed to replace an obsolescent material and intellectual culture by a more productive and rational one” (Marcuse 1). He goes on to explain how if these so called freedoms are institutionalized then the outcome cancels out the premise (Marcuse 1). This means that Marcuse saw society leaning to a capitalistic, hard-working state that shied away from the thinkers and philosophers of the past. I did not see this the first time reading Marcuse, but after rereading some of the book I saw that when he italicizes a word or phrase it is a key moment in the text when trying to decipher what exactly he is trying to say. On page four Marcuse goes on to explain a major aspect of what he thinks freedom is or better yet how it works:

“Thus economic freedom would mean freedom from the economy – from being controlled by economic forces and relationships; freedom from the daily struggle for existence, from earning a living. Political freedom would mean liberation of the individuals from politics over which they have no effective control” (Marcuse 4).

I was going to leave out this quote but Marcuse’s use of the word from was brought to my attention and now I see the importance of its usage. Marcuse knew exactly what he was doing when he italicizes from twice in a two sentence span. He wanted to strain the from as to say the economy or the politics are a binding force that can hinder people. Marcuse didn’t want the economy to dictate what he did or when he did it. He saw that in America and its free enterprise beliefs people were not free from the economy (Marcuse 4). The fact that in the present day in the normal household it is more uncommon to see one parent working as opposed to two. The economy influenced, if not forced this change in society and I believe Marcuse would agree with me. Also, the theory of Marcuse wanting to be free from politics goes hand and hand with the economy. Marcuse saw the choices in a democratic American system to be flawed. Even though, yes there is a choice, he disliked the idea of having two political parties electing one spokesman each to compete against one another. In this system can one be free from politics? I understand where Marcuse is coming from when he said “politics over which they have no effective control” (Marcuse 4). In America we do have a choice in picking the President because each citizen gets a vote. This can be considered by some as a false sense of security because do we really have control over the politics. The two political parties are in control, making the people chose between two people that are implanted as candidates by the political party itself. So in most cases, people vote of the political party that they have the least about of problems with. Marcuse would argue that this is not freedom from politics. He would mention the fact that even voters that would try to make a stand and vote for a candidate that was not the Republican or Democratic choice, would have no control of the outcome. This in my eyes and using Marcuse’s words is not freedom from politics. Along the lines of Marcuse having freedom being plural comes the idea of autonomy, which means the freedom of thought (Marcuse 1). As I explained earlier, Marcuse believes in that freedom is from things, but it can also be in turn to do something. A major aspect of this idea is being you. He talks about not getting sucked in the mass media and commercialism of the world. Overall, he wants to be influenced only to create his own ideas and thoughts not to be pressured or almost forced into making a decision like voting for the President. Being an individual is a major part of freedom for Marcuse and I believe that it can be argued that it is his summarizing thought when it comes to being free as a person.

Butler takes a different approach when getting her definition of freedom out to the reader. I feel that Butler’s actual beliefs are mainly portrayed by the character Lauren Olamina in the book Parable of the Sower. So, if this is the case Butler’s definition would mirror what Lauren thinks, does, and says throughout the story. Lauren writes down verses of what she has named Earthseed, and she is not sure what to call it; idea, philosophy, or religion. Usually the verses are found at the beginning of a new chapter and are bolded and placed above the actual text of the story. One that stuck out to me when trying to find verses that could be tied to Marcuse was in-between chapters. It lay on its own page and said;

“Intelligence is ongoing, individual adaptability. Adaptations that an intelligent species make over many generations of selective breeding and selective dying. Yet intelligence is demanding. If it is misdirected by accident or by intent, it can foster its own orgies of breeding and dying” (Butler 30).

Although I believe Butler’s main objective in this verse was to make people think about Lauren’s condition hyperempathy, which means she shares the pains of others around her, I feel it mirrors some of the same principals Marcuse talked about. Butler is saying that evolution is a part of life and change is always happening. In the quote she means that intelligence itself can be misdirected. This goes back to Marcuse’s want to be free and be your own person and not conform to the status quo of society. Intelligence can be influenced in a negative manner and it is the job of the true intelligent to not let that happen. In the Parable of the Sower a major theme is being your own person because of the journey Lauren encounters. To Lauren, freedom was gaining knowledge and surviving. Also, the wall that surrounds the community the Olaminas live, Lauren’s family, represents freedom. Outside the wall was what Lauren thought freedom meant, not being trapped and unable to spread her words of Earthseed. Staying inside meant she was a conformer to the society, to the country. The wall was a physical boundary from the unruly outside and nice community but also a mental block. The wall represented the lack of choice Lauren had or Marcuse would say that Lauren wanted or needed to be free from the wall. Just like the economy or politics, the wall persuaded the community into thinking they were safe and all would be well. Butler sneaks in her thoughts about politics with the use of Lauren’s father at the end of chapter three when her closing paragraph was, “Dad decided not to vote for Donner after all. He didn’t vote for anyone. He said politicians turned his stomach” (Butler 27). All be it, this is a much simpler attack on Democracy than Marcuse, and in essence it’s the same belief; that the choice is not free in any world. Living with a wall surrounding you in such a tight quarter has to give most of the people a false sense of security. This is how Zahra could honestly not see the attacks coming even though see once lived outside on the streets. She was not brain washed, just the sight and feeling of the wall made her and probably most of the community safe forever. This shows that Zahra was not truly intelligent or free. This was not the case with Lauren, or Butler if you believe that Lauren is Butler when it comes to beliefs and ideas as I do. Her freedom was outside and changing. “Change is God” (Butler). If freedom is change than does that mean freedom is God? I think this is what Butler was trying to say about freedom. The change is ongoing and so is the pursuit of freedom in a world of status quo and conformity. Lauren looks for freedom and does not settle for anything less. She does this by always trying to be her own person. She has the innate ability to block out the bad influences and create and be influenced by the good. Her goal is to not only survive, but to spread Earthseed to any and all. This is her means to an end and I think this is similar to Marcuse’s main ideas about being one’s self and free.

I see Parable of the Sower as a book that is about freedom, in the sense of being an adult and your own person. Others however see it differently. According to Hunter and Vedder the books main theme is freedom but not the type of freedom I talked about. They insist that the book is placed in the future but is really supposed to explain slavery in early America. They say that Bankole, an old man Lauren draws interest into during her voyage, said that the country has gone back 200 years (Hunter and Vedder 150). Seeing as the book is set in 2024-2027, 200 years ago would but us right in the middle of slavery in America. This being said I feel that the whole slavery theme is a footnote to the thoughts Butler was trying to get out about freedom. Its true Lauren, Butler, and Marcuse did not want to ever be slaves to anyone whether it is the economy, a plantation, or a wall. The thing is that freedom is being free from these types of things. Slavery is important and should not just be put to side but I think there is something bigger here. The point is that if a person can think and rid themselves from the bad influences then in turn they will be free from all. Another belief is that Marcuse’s definition of freedom, which I think has different viewing points are criticized by some scholars. “Marcuse never ceased believing in the utopian hopes of Marx’s leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom… (Schoenberg and Trudeau 170). I can see where the two are coming from saying that Marcuse’s ideology can come off as unrealistic but that is just the surface of his thoughts. Marcuse looked at the world in One-Dimensional Man with a critical eye questioning all and accepting nothing. This being said it is not that he versioned a world that was flawless, he just wanted people to see what freedom is and how it can be obtained. Not by working your ass off so your wife can wear the nicest clothes but to be able to think and avoid the terrible influences of the produces that only see society as a bunch of consumers and money.

Overall, I honestly feel that Octavia Butler and Herbert Marcuse at least had the similar views on the concept of freedom in the two books Parable of the Sower and One-Dimensional Man. Both tie into my own life. Butler talks about change over and over again. For me freedom is moving forward – it’s changing. Marcuse talks about moving towards an end and to do that change is needed. At times change can be scary and even seem impossible. It takes a person of true strength to change and become free from the lowest of lows and continue to bounce back after punch after punch. That’s what life is; a beat down. Not a fight because in a fight you will probably land a fist or two, but in life it is just about getting up. Waking up every day and getting out of bed with the outlook of trying to better you for today, tomorrow, and the future. This can’t be done without freedom. Both Marcuse and Butler agree that freedom is not easy to reach, but on the other hand they know it is possible if you put the time and effort into the act of changing and becoming free.

Works Cited

Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. New York: Warner Brothers Books, 1993.

Marcuse, Herbert. One-Dimensional Man. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991.

Hunter, Jeffery and Vedder, Polly. “Octavia Butler (1947-).” Contemporary Literary Criticism. volume 121. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. p71-152.

Schoenberg, Thomas J. and Trudeau, Lawrence J. “Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979).” Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Vol. 207. Detroit: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2008. p61-235.

Immediate Change

Revision of Grass Everywhere (Blog Entry 3)

Although Walt Whitman originally privately published “Leaves of Grass” in 1855, a whole 6 years before the start of the Civil War, it is still a truly reflective representation of Whitman’s outlook on the steadily changing state of America. Whitman was a “Radical Republican” and was thus an avid supporter of the Union Army during the Civil War. Whitman advocated the idea of democracy for all and believed that all people should be treated equal. A Humanist, he proudly stood behind President Lincoln during his fight to abolish slavery and wrote several poems praising him and his ideas. Whitman agreed that all people should be treated equal and that one’s color is not grounds for discrimination. In fact, Whitman felt so strongly about this that he not only just wrote about the war, he wrote some of his best work on the field as a psychological nurse to sick and wounded soldiers. Although Whitman frowned upon the numerous young lives cut short by the bloodshed of the war, he felt that something as magnificent as democracy is something worth fighting and dying for. In one of the numerous notebooks Whitman scribbled notes in while during his hospital years, Whitman writes, “The expression of American personality through this war is not to be looked for in the great campaign, & the battle-fights. It is to be looked for … in the hospitals, among the wounded.”

Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass is a collection of twelve pieces of poetry first self published by Whitman in 1855 and was revised extensively before reaching its final permutation in 1881. In Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” section 6 begins with a child asking the narrator “What is the grass? [fetching it to me with full hands]”. Perplexed, the narrator finds himself unable to answer the child’s seemingly simple question and stumbles with various different theories before he indulges in a deeper meaning altogether. The narrator first tries to derive meaning through this question through symbolism; “it is a handkerchief of the lord,” “babe of the vegetation,” but is frustrated by his own inability to derive a suitable answer.

This leads Whitman to revolving around the idea that the grass within the child’s hands is a symbol of life, mortality and ultimately the cycle of regeneration in nature itself. The narrator uses this thought of death and rebirth to relate to the idea of democracy and his positive feelings towards it. He feels that the idea of democracy is something that is much needed as the old way proved itself ineffective and unsalvageable thus a complete overhaul was needed.

Whitman symbolizes grass as an empowering source of democracy; grass grows naturally almost everywhere and only helps move on the cycle of life. The narrator mentions how the grass reminds him of death as grass feeds on the bodies slain from war but yet is necessary in order to provide a better “forward life” for the “offspring taken soon out of [their] laps.” Although the narrator is deeply saddened for the “dead young men and women”, he reminds the reader that everybody dies eventually one way or another and reflects Whitman’s attitude that death towards a meaningful cause is not a wasted life.

This poem was not officially titled “Song of Myself” until the 1881 edition; Before that this was simply titled “Walt Whitman.” I feel like this reflects the poem perfectly as the narrator’s thoughts and views found in Song of Myself parallels that of Whitman very closely. Although this poem was published before the start of the civil war, the very same ideas of progressing democracy can be seen in poems such as “Beat! Beat! Drums!” a poetic rally for the North, written by Whitman during the start of the Civil War.

This widespread passionate sense of patriotism seems to be relatively short lasting as it seems the next immediate generation has already begun to have its doubts about the true efficacy of democracy. Whitman passed away just 6 years before Marcuse was even born and yet both authors deal with many of the same issues relating to democracy in “Song of Myself” and “One Dimensional Man” in very contrasting ways. Whitman obviously supports the idea of democracy as he not only believes a few lost lives is a small price for “freedom,” but was willing to go onto the battlefield and help wounded soldiers. Marcuse on the other hand would probably frown upon this and even argue that this is the thought is the exact kind of idea that would be “pushed” or forced onto the population by the “democratic” government. Marcuse argues that although in theory democracy and “liberty for all” sounds like an ideal plan that satisfies everyone, liberty itself can be used as a tool for controlling the masses as an unreachable goal that just dangles right in front of the general people. Whitman seems to truly believe that democracy is the ultimate way to go as it gives power to the common people but Marcuse would dispute that claim as he believes that the ability to chose ones leaders does not completely bring the absence of totalitarianism and tyranny. Something that was ultimately the very thing democracy was aimed to rid the country of.

Marcuse reasons that the very solutions created by democracy also create more problems as well. One of the main public demands from democracy was the right to freedom of speech, something that Whitman would thoroughly stand behind. Marcuse on the other hand would debate that despite the positive reasons for freedom of speech, this right also allows the act of free censorship, which is counterproductive of the intended goal. Also with progression in society comes technological advances that although should benefit the common good of society, Marcuse believes that the government would uses the advances for oppression of the common people rather than helping.

Despite the short time difference between these two authors, their political views and opinions couldn’t have been any more different. Whitman, who basically witnessed the whole Civil War from the very beginning to the end, supported the idea with all his heart. He truly believed that democracy was the answer and fought hard for it. Marcuse on the other hand, was born after the Civil War was over and witnessed the true “beginning” of the newly instated democracy. Marcuse used One Dimensional man to shine light on numerous faults found within democracy and generally showed a negative view towards it. Perhaps the reason for this distinct contrast in these two author’s attitudes is the time period in which they grew up and experienced.

Whitman strongly supported the North’s side in the Civil War as he believed that democracy is the right step for America as he felt it needed change in order to flourish. This support was so strong that he felt war was needed in order to secure the promise of democracy. Marcuse grew up during the aftermath of Whitman’s generation and felt the effects more than Whitman did. It is very plausible that Marcuse, seeing the amount of bloodshed and suffering caused by the war fighting, realized that maybe it wasn’t all worth it and war perhaps wasn’t the answer. Maybe even democracy isn’t the answer that everyone was looking for, as there are numerous holes in the system, pointed out by Marcuse in One Dimensional Man. Marcuse and Whitman both wrote based on the economical and political situation during their lifetimes and this contrast can be easily seen in their works. During Whitman’s lifetime, the current political stance of the United States was still readily evolving, eager to become the utopian society the common people envisioned. Thus much of Whitman’s literature was written generally supporting the progression of democracy as he justly felt that democracy was the end to all of their problems, Marcuse on the other hand grew up after Whitman’s time period and he saw the emerging problems and harms found within the democratic system. Consequently, much of Marcuse’s literature is somewhat opposing the advancement of democracy as he shines light onto the dark problems he foretells. It is very ironic that the very next generation that Whitman’s generation was trying to ‘preserve’ with the induction of democracy is already questioning the whole idea itself. Maybe the whole democratic system isn’t as everlasting as our forefathers would have hoped.

Works Cited

Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. New York: Warner Brothers Books, 1993.
Marcuse, Herbert. One-Dimensional Man. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991.

Price, Angel. "Whitman's Wartime Washington." American Studies @ The University of Virginia. Web. 20 Feb. 2011. .

Parables Abound

Holy books, such as the Bible, the Qur’an, or the Torah, are often the main way of conveying a religion’s ideology. They do so in similar ways that can be considered characteristic of holy books. These characteristics are helpful in classifying books, such as Parable of the Sower, as holy books, or compilations that function as a guide to living one’s life. Parable of the Sower’s main function is to act as the holy book for Earthseed.


One of the main methods of guiding Parable of the Sower employs is through the use of parables. Each section of Lauren’s diary serves as a small parable, usually teaching a lesson or making a point about how change is exponential and reciprocal. For example, Lauren and the rest of Earthseed decide to help two strangers out of a heap of ruble after the earthquake with full knowledge that it makes their entire group a target, “Before the attack began, I knew it would happen” (234). This simple act speaks to the magnitude of the effect of change, Earthseed’s main ideology. The group changes their course and decides to help Jill and Allie which changes their lives saving them, which in turn changes the Earthseed group by causing them to be attacked in their weakened state. Lauren seems to be aware that their effect on the sisters’ lives was the main cause of their attack by connecting the two thoughts rather than seeing them independent of each other, “Helping the two trapped women had made us targets” (234). This short story exemplifies the idea that change is paramount to Earthseed. It shows that everything we affect, also affects everything around. The Bible, with focus on the New Testament, also uses parables to demonstrate important lessons central to the concept of Christianity. For example, in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 13, the story of the prodigal son acts as a message of redemption. After receiving money from his father, the younger son left his home to a different city and eventually squanders away his money. He realizes he is unfit to ask his father’s forgiveness, but sets off to ask to work for his father. Upon sight the father rejoices in his return which angers the older brother who had been a dutiful son in his brother’s absence. The father explains that they must rejoice that the younger son is home again, “It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:32). This parable shows one of the corner stones of Christianity, the continuous opportunity for redemption. The Torah, like the Bible and Parable of the Sower, also uses parables to represent the core piece of their belief system. The Book of Ruth advocates proper duty through Boaz properly following Levirate Law, even with no apparent benefit to him because he allows for Elimelech’s name to remain associated with the inheritance. One of the main messages of this parable becomes clear with the genealogy of David. Instead of Elimelech’s name being part of his ancestry as the Law stated should be so, Boaz is recognized as David’s predecessor. Here, the idea of duty is reinforced by the recognition of Boaz’s sacrifice of land to be gained, thus making clear the message of the importance of responsibility and loyalty. The messages the prominent holy books convey through their parables are central to their doctrines in the same way that the lessons of the stories in Parable of a Sower express fundamental beliefs of Earthseed.


Such beliefs are further solidified in the novel through the verses weaved throughout the prose portions of the text. This is yet another feature of a prominent holy book, the Qur’an. The Qur’an is composed of around 6236 ayat, or verses, which are arranged into 114 surah, or chapters. The verses convey messages of the Islam religion. For example, the verse “So patiently persevere: for verily the promise of Allah is true; nor let those shake they firmness who have themselves no certainty of faith” (al-Qur’an 30:60) deliberately instructs on the importance of persistence and certainty according to Islam. Not only does the novel also make use of verse but it also echoes the attitude of the Qur’an, “Prodigy is, at its essence, adaptability and persistent, positive obsession …Without positive obsession, there is nothing at all” (1). The true sentiment of these statements can be shown through the scene where Lauren divulges her worries to Joanne about their current social situation. Throughout the entire conversation between the two girls, Lauren persists and continues to try and help Joanne comprehend the fragility of their community and society, “And there’s a blizzard freezing the northern midwest, killing even more people. In New York and New Jersey, a measles epidemic is killing people” (54). Here, Lauren exemplifies the persistence that is necessary for upholding one’s beliefs according the Earthseed and Islam. As such, she is characterized as a prodigy, or an exemplary pupil of Earthseed, and her actions become instructive. The verse allows the reader to make the connection between the abstract thought and the instructions that are hidden within it. The difference in the straightforwardness of the verses between the Qur’an and Parable of the Sower is a minor detail when compared to the similarities between the emphasis put on the actual messages of the verses. Parable of the Sower also uses verses to convey observations about Earthseed, “There is no end / To what a living world / Will demand of you” (137). This verse speaks to Lauren’s father’s funeral and the burning of the Payne-Parrish house. This illustrates one of the main reasons for Earthseed’s existence. The world outside of Earthseed will serve up misfortune after misfortune (like the disappearance of Reverent Olamina, the fire, and the subsequent robberies) and Earthseed is somewhere to find solace. The Bible also features verses that act as an observation of Christianity existence, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). This verse delves into the necessity for the existence of Christianity in a similar way that the Earthseed verse does by pointing out its own necessity. By describing the life without Christianity this verse paints a picture of absolute death, due to original sin, with no chance of the afterlife Christianity promises. By showing the existence those without Christianity will have reinforces the Christian belief system the same way that Lauren uses her difficulties before Earthseed to reinforce the strength she feels through her belief in change. The verses in these holy books act as a way to state a core ideal of their individual belief system that is parallel to the way Parable of the Sower employs its verses.


There are numerous parallels between Parable of the Sower and many prominent holy books, such as the use of parables to teach core lessons and the use of verses to convey important ideologies and even contemplate the importance of the existence of the belief system. These parallels between Parable of the Sower and central holy books solidifies the idea that Parable of the Sower is an attempt at a holy book for Earthseed.

Bibliography:

Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower
King James Bible

revision tohttp://pitt-crit-reading.blogspot.com/2011/01/wage-slavery-in-parable-and-capitalism.html

Purpose and Direction

At first glance the great humanist poet Walt Whitman, Herbert Marcuse the political theorist, and Octavia E. Butler the African American science fiction writer have absolutely nothing in common. But upon a closer study of three of their greatest works, Song of Myself, One-dimensional Man, and Parable of the Sower, respectively, there is a theme of change and what it means to society through all of them. In this paper I will be making the claim that all three writers, of very different time periods, styles, and backgrounds, have the same view on change and its function in society. Although none are by any means modern, their ideas are applicable and arguably even helpful to today’s society.

Comparing these three works raises several very interesting questions; what is change, how is change brought about, and how change is a function of society. Each of the authors have different answers to these questions, but what makes them different also brings them together into one cohesive argument. They discuss three important points affecting change, religion, sexuality, and politics; the framework for society is, by no surprise, also the foundation for change.

Butler’s Parable of the Sower is easily the most religion-based of the three works. The main character Lauren Olamina, creates an entirely new religion based solely on change. Earthseed is the name of her religion, and like the bible, she writes “verses” of the ideology behind it throughout the book. One of the most influential begins chapter eleven; it says, “Any Change may bear seeds of benefit. Seek them out. Any Change may bear seeds of harm. Beware. God is infinitely malleable. God is Change.” (Butler 116) Not only is change important to the fictional society in this book, but change literally IS God. At the same time that Earthseed supports and endorses change, it also warns believers to the harm change can bring. The moral and underlying pillar of this religion is to accept and create change, and reap the consequences, good or bad. Butler showcases many of the background characters as having an attitude very similar to that of today’s society, apathetic to change, and unwilling to create change for themselves. In this way Butler critiques society very similar to the way Marcuse does in his book, but instead of a subversive critical book, she uses a fictional story to carry the message of change to her readers. Marcuse would categorize these apathetic characters as having false needs; they worry about money, and refuse to accept that their world has/is changing. Instead of accepting the change, like Lauren and some of the other main characters, they choose to hold on to their “safe” idea of society as long as they can. When it is taken away from them, few survive, and they are forced to either accept the change and make the best of it, or wallow in self-pity and become another casualty of change. Lauren takes charge and makes the change to be the catalyst to her own destiny, going through life accepting and even willingly creating change to shape her future. This book also brings up the very important question of human evolution. Is our society so far gone that only a biological change can bring us back? The hyperempathy syndrome profiled in the book forces the

Herbert Marcuse has a very strong opinion on change and its effect on society. Although he does not feel that all change is positive, as Butler does, Marcuse still feels that a major change needs to be made for society to continue in a positive direction. He rejects all forms of industrialization and consumerism, basing it on the fact that these things create “false needs” that create unnecessary waste. Instead of a change in the forward direction, Marcuse wants to see the world change in a backward direction. The way Marcuse feels is best characterized in a quote from the beginning of his book, “The prevalence of repressive needs is an accomplished fact, accepted in ignorance and defeat, but a fact that must be undone in the interest of the happy individual as well as all those whose misery is the price of his satisfaction.” (Marcuse 5) The repressive needs he talks about in this quote are the needs created by consumerism, and when he discusses the need for them to be undone, that is tha change he wishes to be made in society. In his eyes the only change that can be made to fix western society is to go back to only fulfilling a human’s basic needs. The false freedom he talks about in his book is created by the choice given to consumers in the free market. We are allowed to choose what to purchase to make us happy, but this forces people to work more hours to afford a better lifestyle, which in turn creates excessive waste. If society were to return to a simpler way of life, without the free market, we could return to basic lifestyles, and this would allow more creative thought to prevail. He purposes that we reject all forms of control, much like Butler does, to create true freedom. Where Butler uses forward progress and change to show an ideal society, Marcuse uses reverting tactics and promotion of negative thinking to create his ideal society. The common threads between the two, published just under thirty years apart, are endless. Marcuse would agree that a complete destruction and destabilization of the current society, like the events in Butler’s story, would need to occur before society could revert back to its original habits. The characters in Butler’s story very much live their lives based solely on the search for basic needs. They are torn down to their foundations, security, shelter, food and water. In this way, if you can put aside all the violence occurring, Butler’s society is perfect in Marcuse’s eyes. The people of her neighborhood are not troubled with the desires of a modern consumerist world. Their lives revolve around growing food, finding clean water, and protecting their families. It does not get more basic than that.

Walt Whitman uses his poems to convey his message of change in the first installment of Leaves of Grass; Song of Myself. In it’s time, it was given bad reviews because of the overt sexuality encompassed in his naturalistic musings. Much like Marcuse, Whitman sees meaning in all things instead of resources to be used by society. A great quote from Whitman’s Song of Myself that shows his view on time and change is from section seven; “I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-washed babe….and am not contained between my hats and boots, And peruse manifold objects, no two alike, and every one good, The earth good, and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.” (Whitman 6) This shows that like Lauren from Butler’s story, Whitman believes that all change is progress, and that all change is good.

Obviously one could see the opposing argument to this paper, that all three writers have very different views on change and its effects on society. But my response to those arguments is that how the reader perceives the opinion of the writer. Each person who reads these stories will have an entirely different experience than the next. So my argument and supports in this paper are based on my opinions and thoughts that I had when I read them.

Works Cited:

Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2000.

Whitman, Walt. Song of Myself. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2001.

Marcuse, Herbert. One-dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Boston: Beacon, 1991.

Robledo's Berlin Wall

Revision to http://pitt-crit-reading.blogspot.com/2011/01/robledos-berlin-wall.html

Trapped. That is how Lauren Olamina feels in Octavia Butler’s novel Parable of the Sower. Surrounding Lauren’s community Robledo is a wall designed to keep intruders out. Lauren’s desire to break free of the wall and get out into the world is well known in this book. Butler’s constant drilling of the wall surrounding Lauren’s home shows that the wall is influenced by the Berlin Wall of the Cold War.

Parable of the Sower was published in 1993, while the Berlin Wall collapsed only a few years earlier in 1989. The walls in Robledo and Berlin both serve the same purposes: to protect those inside, and prevent unwanted people from stampeding the town. In Germany the soviets were trying to keep out the West Germans, while the fortress in Parable of the Sower is keeping out the street poor, or at least attempting to. Not completely different from the fleeting Germans, Lauren describes the street poor as being desperate, crazy, and/or dangerous. Furthermore, many of them carried weapons, untreated diseases, and wounds (Butler 10-11). Similarly to the Berlin wall, the wall surrounding Robledo represents freedom. Lauren wants to be on the other side, just as the Germans wanted mobility around their country.

Another similarity between the Robledo wall and the Berlin Wall is that both needed a great amount of protection. The Soviets had the Berlin wall heavily guarded to prevent attacks and refugees, while the Robledo wall also had to be protected. When some of the kids in Robledo have to leave their fortress to be baptized in the church, they must carry weapons with them. Lauren said “All the adults were armed. That’s the rule. Go out in a bunch, and go armed” (Butler 8).

However, these walls are opposites in terms of what is waiting on the other side. In his book Life Between Two Deaths, 1989-2001: U.S. Culture in the Long Nineties, Phillip Wegner describes the fall of the Berlin Wall as: “Unexpected and unplanned for, an encounter with a traumatic Real, it instigated a sequence of actions that would culminate two years later in the dramatic collapse of the Soviet Union…The fall of the Berlin Wall was the result of a peaceful and collective mobilization that emerged spontaneously within the Cold War situation” (Wegner 24). This collapse segued into a reunification of Germany to what we know of it today, recombining West Germany and East Germany into one unified Germany.

In stark contrast, the fall of Robledo’s wall was quite different. While it was still the “traumatic Real” Wegner illustrates, the collapse was far from peaceful. The wall was taken down by the “paints” who were pyro addicts. The paints invaded the town and stole all the money and valuables from the townspeople, after first raping them, murdering them, or both. This destruction is a polar opposite of the result of the Berlin Wall collapsing. It actually seems as though the events taking place during the time of the Berlin wall were similar to those after the collapse of Robledo’s wall, and vice versa. Even so, the protagonist of the story Lauren Olamina did not know this; her only goal was to escape the confinements of the wall.

To Lauren Olamina, the wall surrounding her home was a cage and she was begging to be let free, doing whatever it takes to gain that freedom. Unlike her father and step-mother, she does not know what it outside. Her parents know the dangers that irk outside the walls, they know what life used to be like without them, and how much times have changed. Lauren perfectly describes her parents’ recollections of life before the walls and danger: “To the adults, going outside to a real church was like stepping back into the good old days when there were churches all over the place and too many lights and gasoline was for fueling cars and trucks instead of for torching things. They never miss a chance to relive the good old days or to tell kids how great it’s going to be when the country gets back on its feed and good times come back” ( Butler 8). Here Butler is describing our world today as having essentially no faults. But digging deeper reveals a sense of satire; our society is not as perfect as we think it is. In Berlin, Germans were living the same lives as the people in Parable of the Sower, so by reflecting on Berliners perhaps Butler was trying to actually fault today’s society, instead of praising it.

While most people are content with staying in one spot, Lauren desperately wants to break away from home. Even though Joanne Garfield, Curtis, and Corey see the wall as a protector of their freedom, Laurens sees it as the obstacle inhibiting her freedom. She tells her friend Joanne “We’ll die in here unless we get busy now and work out ways to survive,” (Butler 56) but of course Joanne does not agree, and Lauren is scolded for her radical ideas. Even though Lauren is the only one who wants to actually escape the wall, this could be because her idea of “freedom” is different than everyone else’s. After the Berlin Wall was torn down, East Germans were reunited with West Germans. While they may not have actually met before, in Parable of the Sower Lauren is in a way “unites” with sharers like her in Emery, Grayson, Mora, and Tori. This is most likely the only positive aspect to the collapse of the wall: Lauren coming together with people she can relate to; people who finally understand what she is going through. Robledo’s wall was preventing Lauren from being with other sharers, just like the Berlin Wall confined Germans to one half of their country.

Critics may say that Octavia Butler did not actually base her wall surrounding Robledo on the Berlin Wall. Perhaps they say this idea is too general and there is no way to prove this argument. While it is not physically possible to ask Butler the truth, one can use deductions based on her past interviews. If a critic says that instead of the Berlin Wall, Robledo’s wall was based on the need for protection from the 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion, which was also taking place while Butler was writing. During this time rioters burned down book stores and whatever else fit their pleasure, and along with the Rebellion came murders, robberies, and assaults. This may seem similar to life in Parable of the Sower, but in Conversations with Octavia Butler edited by Conseula Francis, Butler herself says the Rebellion had no impact on her writing, saying “actually I was working on the novel as the riots broke out and I worried about whether I should go back and change the novel because I didn’t want to seem as if I was either feeding off of or promoting some of the things that went on in the riots. I mean, they burned down my favorite Black bookstore for heaven’s sake” (Francis 58). However, this is contrasting to the rest of Butler’s work in Parable of the Sower. In a 1994 interview Butler stated that “when I wrote Parable of the Sower , the things that stirred me up the most were the things going on right now. The daily news. There are so many terrible things that are going on” and that she pulled her ideas out of the newspapers (Francis 54-55). Butler was approximately fourteen when the Berlin Wall was erected in August of 1961, and forty-two when it was torn down in 1989. Therefore, what was in the newspapers during the time Octavia Butler was writing Parable of the Sower? The collapse of the Berlin Wall, of course. Butler takes these current events and applies the collapse of the Berlin Wall to the Robledo wall.



Works Cited

Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2000.
Francis, Consuela. Conversations with Octavia Butler. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2010.
Wegner, Phillip E. Life Between Two Deaths, 1989-2001: U.S. Culture in the Long Nineties. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2009.